Unqualified Reservations

Having held a fellow human beingBackbone to bone on the long boneOf his arm; having then carriedHim for a year like a football,Never fumbling once, really never -And all this before any genuineVoice was born and could go to war,Striking with yogurt as he declaimsHis shrill imperium of human rights -Leaves a man ill-suited to any freshAssault from doctrines of equality.They reach him as flat paper echoesFrom some republic of styrofoam; aGrand opera through a teeny speaker.They cannot compete with his afternoons.They cannot compel a two-year-oldWho would rather not put on his pants.Dust of a century too late for bed,They crumble in that firm embraceOf dorsal restraint preferredBy big aides on the ward. "Because,"He hears himself say, "because GodBound the strong to rule the weak,As their burden and their glory -"Did he just say this? Even toHimself? It is his own throat,Not a dream or a computer - "becauseGod bound the strong to rule the weak,You shall put on your pants." AndBy hand the thing is done. Yet sinceNo good sword lacks its back-bite edge,"Those who wish to command must firstLearn to obey -" easy lesson in someAges; most difficult in our own.The noble is a hunted man, a JewIn Berlin. He survives in a mask,Half a murderer and half a joke.Even his nuts are small and soft, andIn school his daughters learn onlyTo despise him. Who then is leftTo rule us? Where now the lions?Still bred, perhaps - where trained?Lord knows we tried ruling ourselves;You can see how that one worked out.